A Life After Midnight
by Witherd Lotus
Summary: Bear struggles to live a life after midnight on the doomsday clock if you dont know what that is look it up very intersting . Lots of violence, swearing, and dark humor, possabaly lemons later. I'm dyslexic so feel free to correct me on any errors.
1. Prolouge Welcome to Hell

Prologue

A long ass fucking time ago there was a beginning where a monkey came down from a tree stopped flinging shit and started stabbing other monkeys with pointed sticks. Slowly but surly the monkeys learned that there were a lot more new and exciting ways to kill each other and started refining the art. Eventually the monkeys found that with a couple glowing rocks and a little elbow grease they could kill millions of other monkeys and they were happy.

Well after a while one big country which is a collection of monkeys had a lot of these glowing rock contraptions and they started telling the world what to do, but another equally big country developed a bunch and told the first country that if they wanted to play then they would play. And these countries went like this for like forty years and eventually they stopped but something insignificant and yet wholly significant happened. One small country split into two this country was called Korea the north part was called North Korea (what a shock) and the south part was called (get this) South Korea. Now this wasn't significant until one of these crazy monkeys that was in charge of the north part went even crazier and started to try to push the rest of the planet around. And needless to say the first big country didn't like this at all.

The north part of Korea attacked the south part and it returned to just Korea. This all happened like two thousand and eleven years after a guy got nailed to a tree for saying how cool it would be to be nice to each other for a change. But I digress because a third large country got into the mix and it and the second one aligned behind the newly formed Korea. And the first big country tried to go over and put North Korea in its place and let them know what's up, you know smack them around but the other big countries started the whole if you want to play we'll play shit again. Unfortunately for the rest of the planet the monkey running Korea… wanted to play.

Korea lobbed couple glowing rocks at the first country which happened to be called the United States of America. The first one hit at three A.M. in the eastern time zone on December 21, 2012 the next three A.M. in the central time zone and the final one three A.M. in the pacific time zone it was clear Korea wanted to send a message. And the U.S.A. sent there own message back. They decided to blow a whole for a border between North and South Korea; the other two countries (China and Russia) didn't like this and decided to teach the US a lesson. By the end of the year twenty nine cities in Californian alone were decimated and over three hundred across America including Washington D.C. and New York.

In the months before the war the U.S. decided to try to create a super solider this was called the R.I.G.H.T.E.O.U.S. project. Which is an extremely long and boring acronym that simply means that they lived 30x longer, they were 20x stronger and faster than any human, they were resent to all disease, and radiation. They were perfect and like every project there were prototypes and these prototypes were some of the worst fuck ups in existence. There was one proto type that produced a mutated form of R.I.G.H.T.E.O.U.S. that they called EVIL. That wasn't an acronym but it was as its name suggested it was truly evil. It provided you with the same advantages as R.I.G.H.T.E.O.U.S. except in the presence of radiation it caused the most excruciating pain imaginable and it caused a fast decent in to insanity. They became extremely violent and wanted nothing other than to kill… it was horrible. Unfortunately both R.I.G.H.T.O.U.S. and EVIL ended up fused with a form of the common cold and both were unleashed on the world.

The last part of this horror tale came from the Russians because you see they were doing some biological work of there own. They created a disease that was a mutated form of leprosy but it was slower and felt like you were being dipped in a bath of acid. It has some long boring Latin or Russian name but in the U.S. it's just called the Bath. It had one of the same unfortunate side affects as EVIL where they could not be exposed to radiation lest face excruciating pain. So the Russians decided to spread this horror across America.

And so America split in to five pieces there were the east countries that went as far as the Mississippi. From Missouri to the north was the United States and to the south was the Confederate States (hey Custard was right the south did rise again). Then from the Mississippi to the Rockies there was a part down to about Colorado that fused with Canada and there was the Peoples Republic of America south of that. And the final part was in the west and they liked to call themselves Westland. So in the end America got to be what they always wanted a fucked to death pile of burning ca-ca but instead they were five fucked to death irradiated piles burning of ca-ca that are infected with two diseases and a super race that hated humans for what happened to the earth. So you can under stand why when you meet a native they wont say hello they will welcome you to their country with a hardy "Welcome to hell".


	2. Chapter 1 Blood of a Brother

Chapter one

Blood of a Brother.

"BRANDON ERNEST ALEX ROLLENDS" said a disembodied voice from the door. Bear chuckled the only one that had the audacity to call him by his full name was his best friend Keith. Bare opened the door and looked upon his friend. He towered over Keith, Bare being 6'3" and pushing three hundred lbs. and Keith being a mere 5'7" two twenty-five at the most on a good day. "So Brandon how goes it?" Keith said drawing out the word Brandon full well knowing that he hated being called by his given name. Bear preferred his acronym because: A. he was very bear like in size and every body said that they reminded them of a bear even before he told them his name. And B. because his parents used to call him Bear and he wanted to hold on to that little peace of them.

"Oh come of it jack ass" Bear said giving his friend a stern look. "But I am doing very well thank you. How have you been? God I haven't seen you in like two weeks."

"I've had a bit of a stuffy head." Keith said with a sniff. Bear looked him over he had the tell tale sings of a cold and Keith must have seen him because he responded with "Don't you look at me like that you big ass lug. It's not like I go EVIL or any thing." He said the last part trailing in a way that gave Bear the impression that he was trying to convince himself more then he was Bear. "Hell If I've got any thing I've got fucking R.I.G.H.T.O.U.S." he said jubilantly. Yet bear still stared and Keith must have felt this too because he got defensive and said "Goddamn it Bare I don't have it! I DON'T HAVE THE FUCKING EVIL!!" as he said it his hand came down on the steal coffee table witch promptly broke in half.

Bear stared in disbelief as his friend fell to his knees wile still mumbling "I don't have it no I can't I don't have it." And then he began exhibiting the final symptom Bear looked on at the man he conceded a brother began crying tears of blood and his irises turned a glowing blue watching this made Bear begin crying as well. He put one of his massive arms around Keith and they set there foreheads together. He cried with his friend while his other arm pulled the pistol from his waste band. Bear wisped to his friend "I know man. I know. It will be okay." But he didn't even believe himself. He pressed the gun against Keith's head and pulled the trigger. CRACK!!! And Keith was gone.

About a week later there was a knock at Bear's door he had barely moved since he put his friend down he had only moved from his couch to burn the corpse of the man who had stood beside him for so long. He reached from his couch top position and opened the door. His friend Jenny walked in and with a quick salutation walked to the kitchen and looked for some thing to drink. Praying for a beer she was quickly disappointed when she remembered that Bare never touched drugs or alcohol being a strong believer that he didn't need to fog up his mind in a time like this. So she settled for one of the several energy drinks that lined the refrigerator. "God you must be in heaven ever since LA sent these things up." And she chuckled to her self she looked around the small apartment and some thing just didn't seem right she looked at Bear and noticed it looked like he hadn't shaved in a week. "Man where has Keith been?" She said not knowing the affect that it had on her friend. "I haven't seen him in like three weeks and then you disappear for the last week. I assumed that you two tried to leave red sector." She sat on the couch across form him and noticed some thing else that the typical solid steel coffee table that sat between the two couches was broken and it was upon looking down at it that she noticed what was really wrong. There was a large puddle of dried blood inches from her feet and all over Bears clothes. She gawked at him "Bear what happened." She said. At that Bear began to sob and looked at her "H-He came o-o-over and h-h-he had the e-e-e-ev." He said thru the tears. She gasped as she knew what he was talking about even though he hadn't finished the sentence before collapsing in tears.

"Who? Who had the evil?" she asked thinking any number of people.

"K-K-Keith" Bare sobbed.

Jenny gasped she knew how close Bare and Keith had become. They had gotten that way because both there parents had been killed in a near by city that during the war had been flattened by an atomic bomb. They had been friends before that but they became brothers after. Jenny thought to her self he was the only man that Bare would allow to call him Brandon without killing them. She stared as the mouton of a man sobbed in front of her and found herself beginning to cry.

Steve, Jenny's boyfriend, peaked his head in the door and it took him a moment to take in the scene. He saw what had to be the largest man in red sector bawling and covered in blood while being held by his own girl friend who was crying just as hard. Both were sitting in front of a puddle of dried blood and a solid steel coffee table that was broken in half. "Jenny. G3 is up for showers" he said which got Bear to look up at Steve and growl. Bear had a made a point to make it known that he didn't like Steve. Jenny once asked him why he did and Bear said that "he just isn't the right kind of person" then she asked "then who is the right kind of person" the only response she got from him was "not Steve".

Jenny looked up at Steve and said "Keith is dead. He got EVIL and Bear had to put him down and burn the body." Steve looked at them in a speechless stupidity. He put his hand on Bears shoulder and Bear flipped him so he landed with a hard thud on the remnants of the coffee table. In an instant Bear was standing over Steve and the gun flew out of his waist band and was pointed at the head of the floored man. Bear had the look of insanity on his face that told Steve and Jenny that he was in the mood to kill him given a reason. The angry insanity slowly melted back into normality and then deep sadness he sat back down on the couch and broke into tears again as he looked at the gun in his hand.

"This is the very gun I used." He said with a blank look on his face. "I killed him with this gun and then I burned his body." He said with the same blank face but then his arm moved up and pressed the lukewarm steel of the gun against his temple. "It seems fitting that I should use it to take my own life as well." Jenny shrieked and tackled Bear she managed to wrestle the gun away from him she stared him down "GODDAMN IT BEAR!! YOU NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP SOBBING. IT WASENT YOUR FAULT!! YES YOU SHOT HIM BUT YOU HAD TO!! HE HAD EVIL YOU COULDENT JUST LET HIM GO!!" Jenny shouted at Bear.

"HE WAS MY BROTHER. AND I KILLED HIM!!

"BUT YOU MAY HAVE SAVED RED SECTOR!!" at this Bear just stared. It was true, one case of EVIL could contaminate the entire sector, he was safe because he was completely immune to both EVIL and R.I.G.H.T.O.U.S. Ever since he was eight years old he had been immune to the common cold. In fact it was his blood that helped develop R.I.G.H.T.O.U.S. It was also why his parents were in the city when the bomb went off his father was coming back from the government lab where he worked and his mother went to the air port to pick him up.

Apparently this went thru Bears head because he looked at Jenny, shudder, and said "Yeah… I guess your right" then he picked up her energy drink and took a long pull off of it. "I just fucking wish it didn't have to be this way." He said.

In an insensitive move Steve interjected with "Well are we going to go get our showers? I missed the other days so it's been fore days since I last showered." Bear growled again and said "Get the fuck out of my house and get your shower I'll get Jenny there later, you obviously don't care about this plight."

Steve didn't like this at all and added "Jenny is my girlfriend and I will take her to the showers myself. Come on Jenny lets go." Jenny just looked at him and shook her head. Steve went red and got very flustered then said "FINE! But we are going to fucking talk about this later." With that he left and slammed the door behind him.

Jenny looked at Bear "I'm sorry he… I don't know what to say I guess he has just become hardened by the war."

Bear stared at her for a moment. He had had a crush on her ever since they were in school but he could respect that she was in a committed relationship although he resented that she was with Steve. After his moment he said "We have all been hardened by what's happened. Steve is just an ass hole."

Jenny was glad Bear had stopped crying then she reached around him and searched around in his pants when she found what she was looking for she pulled it out. She looked at the Ipod that she had just retrieved Bear always had it on him and always had charged ever since LA had turned the power back on. She flipped thru the songs and found the one that she was looking for, placed an ear bud in each of there ears and hit play. The familiar sound of Thy Unveiling by ICP filled his ears and he felt him self smile for the first time in a week. This song always made him feel good because it reminded him that god was always out there no matter where he was. He blinked and looked at Jenny grooving to the song "You know and I hate to say this but Steve is right it is Com-day, plus being that I haven't been to a Com-day in a week I have worked up some tokens. We should go."

Com-day stood for Commodity day and came every other day. It is where you got to use tokens that allowed you to: take warm showers, wash your cloths, get fresh water and any thing else you could think of. Though you could still buy other non commodities with currency of some sort, usually Westland money or things like salt, food, or any thing you could part with the but, the tokens were for things that made life easer and or possible.

Westland had a strong currency because they had a lot of things that other countries wanted. Westland had some of the richest salt mines in North America and a lot of ocean water refineries. Since some off shore drilling was allowed by the Westland government they had a lot of fossil fuels but they had even more hydrogen which had become a very strong fuel since the war. That gave them the ability to buy and there for the ability to give out a lot of fresh water. It was a good life in Westland but, on the other hand it was not good a good life in red sector of Westland. It was called red sector because to they had large numbers of people infected with EVIL and the Bath all round them they on top of that had three blast sights on the north and south sides of it. Nuclear blast sights tended to be places that those infected with R.I.G.H.T.O.U.S. would stay.

Bear came out of his extremely long shower feeling and looking clean and shaven. It was the best he felt since he had put Keith down. Deep down he still felt like a murderer but he knew that Jenny was right he had done the right thing.

He smiled at the sweet solitude of the laundry mat. Bear loved doing laundry it made him feel like he was washing his brain along with his cloths and right now his brain could go for a good washing. So he sat as the sloshing clothes slowly were cleansed and listened to his Ipod finding select songs that made him feel especially good, he was looking for any pick up he could get at this time. He was lip sinking to the sweet slow tune of Withered by Dark Lotus when the door opened and he looked up to find Clare walking in.

Her lips moved soundlessly, and Bear just stared at her then she reached over and yanked the ear buds out of his head and said "How's life Bear?" She sounded jubilant and happy which were hard emotions to come buy these days.

"It hasn't been great lately but I can't complain today." He said in a way that made her look at him in concern. Bear wished that women would stop looking at him like that after he answered that question. He felt that a combination of how he subconsciously put a tone to his voice and the fact that he had been missing for a week was why they looked at him with such concern.

"I haven't seen you in a week what's up. And buy the way you tell Keith that he still owes me five tokens lazy bum must be avoiding me. I haven't seen him at one Com-day in bout three weeks." At this Bear's heart dropped. Images of his dead brother flooded his supposedly cleansed mind. A moment of pain flashed thru his head. Clare must have seen this in his eyes for she followed with "Bear what's wrong." He looked at her and regretted saying what he said next.

"Keith is dead. He had EVIL and I put a bullet in his head." And in a flurry of tears and concern she tackled Bear in to a hug. He hated the response he got from women for this was typical of what they would do. When he would tell a man they would flash the "Do you want to talk?" look to him and he would flash the "No. Not at the moment." look back and that would be it, end of transaction. But sadly women would wale and leak from the face and want to hold him. He wouldn't mind a women holding him if it wasn't because they felt bad for him and, they were starting to ruin one of his favorite shirts. Although this might just open up some opportunities for a little more than holding, with this thought he gave himself a bit of a devilish smile and a half wood.

"Oh my god! I feel so stupid for saying that, that must have seemed so hateful. I'm sorry a million times over." She pleaded breaking in to tears of shame and concern.

"Oh god. Stop, stop, stop." He said as he picked the girls head up off his shoulder "It's not your fault. Hey, you were just going off the info you had. It's fine. I'll be fine don't fret. Come on chill." He said as much for him as he did her.

"No you must be devastated, I mean you and Keith were brothers every one knew that. Oh I feel so horrible. Can you ever for give me." She said thru tears. Bear looked at the woman who was bawling on his arm, as he thought back and remembered that she had always been a crier. He huffed and decided to ride out the gale of tears with the small woman.

Eventually she was able to compose herself. It was just as well, because it was right around the time his clothes finished washing. He put then in the dryer and kept thinking about the tiny woman she reminded him how much that red sector needed him. And yet still… He thought he had been thinking about those words any time he found some thing positive and or a reason to stay in red sector. And yet still… the thought trailed off and before he knew it the dryer was buzzing he got his clothes to gather and returned home to start a new week. He got home and removed the old coffee table, but when he returned from the recycle plant he must have spent an hour staring at the puddle of blood determined to clean it up himself. After an undeterminable amount of time he decided to compromise with himself and went and got a friend.

He left home and half an hour later he returned with Vanessa another good friend he had made living in red sector. Bear chuckled to himself remembering the time he had proposed to her when she was pregnant. It may not have been his baby but she was so devastated that the father wouldn't marry her that he figured he would ask just to make her smile. She told him that she would but she loved the father of the baby so Bear paid him a "visit" and "convinced" him to marry her. He laughed watching the man limp over to her about two days after and tenderly got on his knee. He almost couldn't do it because the range of motion it required was too much with his burses.

Bear looked at Vanessa "I know it's a morbid task I just can't do it on my own. I wouldn't ask if…" he began but she cut him off.

"I under stand don't worry." She picked up a sponge and a bucket which Bear had filled with some soap and a gallon of fresh water. He remembered to spend some his extra tokens on a couple gallons of water so this could get done. It wasn't long be for the hard wood of this living room floor was clean and all they had was a bucket of bloody water. "Ah!" she proclaimed "Done. That didn't take as long as I thought it would." She stood back and looked at her handy work.

"Yeah you can't even tell it was there." Bear said as he carefully took off her rubber gloves and respirator, and then he went bring her a glass of clean water. He dumped the blood water down the drain. This was okay these days because the only water in the pipes any more was irradiated so on body ever was stupid enough to use taps. "Hey… Thank you that would have never gotten done with out your help. Really thank you." Bear said. She looked at him in the same way that he had so many women look at him earlier that day. Slowly she did the inevitable and the tears welled up in her eyes as she said "I feel so sorry. I hope you are doing okay." She did as he expected and laid her head on his shoulder and went about leaking all over one of his favorite shirts.

With Vanessa back home Bear settled down to go to bed. As he laid his head down he looked up at the ceiling, where he had painted a mural of the doomsday clock from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It was not pointing at any where it usually did (11:45pm-12:00am) but at 12:05am. This symbolized to him what his life was now ... A life after midnight.


	3. Chapter 2 And Yet Still

Chapter 2

And yet still…

Bear woke up in the usual manner. Screaming at the top of his lungs he looked at the clock 5:00 A.M. It had been ten years since the war had and his night terrors were still wakening him early. "Just as well" He whispered to him self he had decided to go to work that day. Bear ran a general out fitting store that had started as a weapon and pawn shop. Before he had moved in to the apartment he took the weapons cash his father had built up in the months before the war. He had had enough guns, bows, knives, ammo, arrows, grinding stones, imperishable food, and survival/user manuals to train and maintain a small army. Being that he worked for the old government Bears father had known that a war was soon to break out and didn't want his family to go unprotected. So bear had kept cretin of his favorite weapons and traded the rest on which founded his store that he started after the winter. (For three years after the war the world went thru a nuclear winter; which when all said and done killed a little over half of the world population. So with the casualties in the war and after the winter the world's population had dipped to just over 2 billion, and that's including the infected.)

Bear loved his job. Not only because he got to provide his friends with a trustable trading post, but also because he got to apprentice under one of (if not the) best blade maker in red sector. Even though it was work it was usually the highlight of his day. And yet still…

He stopped buy the memorial in the middle of town. They had built it shortly before Westland had made sent the first recon mission. It was to honor every one who had been lost in the war and any of the infections. He stopped and said a prayer when he found his parents, then again when he found Keith's. Bear set a picture of Keith at the end of the list, making a mental note that he would have to remember to get Keith's name put up on the wall as well.

He arrived at the shop at seven. The old man looked at him in a strange way and began with "Where in the Sam shit has your big ass been. I've had to make all the knives and run this goddamn store all on my own. You better have a fucking good explanation for this. I should dock your fucking pay for that." Bear stared him down. "Your old dusty ass knows that I pay you right."

"Shut the fuck up where have you been." The old man said waiving off his apprentices comment.

"Hey if I want to have a mental break down after the death of a brother, I am going to have a fucking mental breakdown." Bear added with a bit of coldness in his voice. He had nothing but love for the old man that had taught him every thing he knew over the last fore years. Bear respected his being old and crotchety but he was pushing a still sore spot.

The old man gave Bear the "Do you want to talk?" look and unlike every one else who had flashed him that look Bear flashed back the "Yes. Thank You." look. The old man verbalized "So what happened?" He had a wise concern in his eyes that assured Bear that the crotchety old man he always went round and round with was gone. He was replaced with the old man that had lived seventy-three years in a hectic and paranoid world.

"He came over, first time I had seen him in weeks, he got angry and broke my coffee table with one slam of his fist. He broke down after that and… well started crying blood…. I had to blow his brains out and torch the body." His eyes began to well up and he wiped away a tear.

The old man stared at him for a long time. He took a cigarette out of his pack lit it and took a drag and said "Well" he took a long pause to take another drag and let it out. He looked at Bear as if to size him up and continued with "It sounds like you had to kill him." The old man looked at bear and gave him a bit of a satisfied nod.

"WHAT!! THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY!?!?! WITH ALL YOUR INFANATE YEARS AND INFANATE WISDOM!?!?!? THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO FUCKING SAY!!! THAT'S IT!!! I ALREADY KNEW THAT!" Bear shouted expecting some thing deep and help full.

"WELL! If you had let me fucking finish." The old man said in an angry jerky tone. "You had to kill him but, now you see it as its you against the world." He said looking at the large young man like he was a dumb ass and his tone seemed to mach. "Which couldn't be further from the truth you big idiot. You've got every one in fucking red sector behind you. You are just to stupid and arrogant to see that." He took another drag off his cigarette and stared him down as if to see if the big man would hit him.

Bear stared at the old man and contemplated hitting him. He decided against it and grabbed his pack of cigarettes and lit one. At this the old man's eyes widened "Fucking old man." He said with the cigarette between his lips "you're right… Haven't smoked in like three years, you can tell me exactly what makes me light up again... The truth."

"Hurts don't it." The old man smiled at Bear and let him know that he would be okay. Bear got to work he thought about how right the old man was every one in red sector was supportive of him even Steve when push comes to shove and yet still…

Commander Franklin walked in the store and turned the sign on the door to "Congratulations were closed" rather than its usual "Sorry were open" a joke that had made Bear chuckle when he had purchased the sign but was now forgotten. "Hey I don't care if that was a direct order from L.A. but you can't just close us down when you want." Bear said looking at the official sternly waiting for him to do some thing stupid so he could start an uprising.

"I have a deal that I need to discuss with you. And before you ask no this cant be done with other people here." The military Commander looked at him with some concern in his eyes.

"Go on I'll listen but this had better be important." Bear said with a spectacle tone that matched his look.

"I need all the automatic weapons you have and as much ammo you can part with." The Commander looked at him hoping to get a yes. "All of our automatic fire arms are currently jammed or broken we need what you got. We haven't gotten a shipment in about fore months and we are out of every thing. We are going to check in with L.A. get supplies but we need to get there safely." He looked at Bear with concern moving into the final stage of his plan. "We are willing to offer twenty contamination suits. And we need at least ten guns. So do we have a deal?"

Bear stared in awe "You have twenty real, honest to god, walk thru a blast sight contamination suits." Any one in there right mind wants a contamination suite being that they protected against radiation they gave you full range of motion in the new irradiated world. "Frank… You got a deal, but I want the suits first." He said expecting a quick no but Frank went to the door slipped his head out the door and made a motion. Moments later several of the commanders men came running in carrying twenty boxes Frank took a box broke the seal then he pulled out a large white suite that wrapped around ones body and had a zipper up the back and two hoses in the part for the head. Out of the same box he pulled a cylinder that went in a back pack like compartment on the suit that allowed the hoses access to the air filter.

It was clear to Bear that this was no joke. "All right come in the back." He motioned to the men. He handed each man an M-16 and a box of ammo and they would return for a second one after they placed what they had in the truck. He only had enough M-16's for the subordinates he looked at the Commander and said "Frank lucky dog you get the M-14" Bear smiled at him he had always considered the earlier model of the two guns much more useful. The men returned got there second box of ammo and left, with the officers gone it gave Bear a moment to think. He went out back and smoked a cigarette and started mumbling to himself "These things are going to give a lot of people a chance. A chance to leave red sector, they could go to L.A. or even the eastern countries. And yet still… AND YET STILL… And yet still I could take one and leave this shit hole I could leave and never look back. I could start a new life without the memories of Keith, without the responsibility of working here, or living with these people. I could leave it all behind. Correction I _AM _going to leave it all behind and I will never look back." His head was reeling with his new resolve when one thought crossed his mind, And yet still…


End file.
